


I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings

by beanarie



Series: Entropy [3]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: Familiarity might not always breed contempt, but these two men who love each other more than almost anything in the world are about ready to throw down.
Relationships: Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Series: Entropy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890100
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings

This is Neal's room, at least the one he's been inhabiting for long enough that Peter can navigate the corridors on autopilot. Yet Neal is nowhere to be seen. He considers trying to find Candela the nurse, who he thinks he saw on his way in until he hears water running in the bathroom. Soon Neal emerges, looking, not well, but quantifiably more like himself than he did this morning. He's wearing the lounge pants June brought a few days ago and he's standing upright. Both of those are a big improvement.

"Well, what'd they say?" Peter asks. Neal gives him one thumb up. "No dialysis?"

"No dialysis."

"Okay. Okay. That's great." They settle into their respective spots, Neal rolling his little IV stand to the second chair instead of the bed, and Peter decidedly ignores the sinking feeling in his stomach. It's terrible to feel dread at signs your best friend is going to make a full recovery from a life-threatening injury, but Peter isn't a bad person. He simply longs for a shred of assurance that he can blink without Neal vanishing forever.

Peter glances at the bathroom door. "Anyway, should you be, uh-"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

Neal sighs. "You know what." _Don't ruin everything_ , he doesn't say. And good thing he didn't. Neal's latest shenanigans trump any attempt Peter could ever make at ruining anything.

"Fine."

"I need to take a piss, I'm going to take a piss. And if they have a problem with it, it's their job to yell at me."

It's highly possible, probable even, that Neal went because he felt like it and not because he actually had to. "I said fine." He opens the free AM paper he grabbed from a stack in the lobby. "Oh, look. Cronuts are over."

Neal snorts. Three pages of repackaged Associated Press blurbs later, he speaks up, letting Peter take the momentary win in their ongoing passive-aggressive game not to be the first to break the silence. "What replaced them?"

Peter shuffles back to the second page even though he remembers perfectly well. "A mass produced version sold at every Dunkin' Donuts in the Mid Atlantic region." 

"Shame."

"Not everyone has three hours to wait in line at one tiny bakery in downtown Manhattan."

"Dominique Ansel's creation still had its moment in the sun, I suppose," Neal says, sounding more wistful than annoyed for once.

A nostalgic, melancholy twist was placed on the word sun and it's true; they haven't had such great weather lately. However. "Your little jaunt to Cape Verde wasn't _that_ long ago."

"I know. The leg still aches during a hard rain."

Agent Collins, the mercenary son of a bitch who shot Neal so he couldn't run, jumps up another notch on the very short list of people Peter would knock off a bridge if he could. He pushes the anger aside where it can be brought out when it would be of more use. "Where would you have gone?" 

"If Collins hadn't shown up to drag me back, nowhere."

"Not eighteen months ago," Peter says. Now. Last week.

"Oh." Neal looks surprised but not startled or angry enough to go guarded again. "Somewhere in Asia, maybe. I haven't done Dubai in a while."

There is a way for Peter to attack this opening, make it wider. It's there, just on the tip of his tongue. If he could go back to treating Neal like a suspect this wouldn't be so hard. Elizabeth did her best; she got good intel. He needs to take over from here.

Neal throws the silence game again, making Peter feel almost pitied. "You've spent quite a lot of time here with me. Do you still have a job?"

"Keep in mind, you've been sleeping a _lot_." Peter pretends to be interested in a list of notable celebrity tweets from this week. "I doubt you know what day it is."

"Wednesday," Neal says instantly. One corner of his mouth curls in response to Peter's involuntary smile. The back of his head is flush against the chair. He's starting to fade, but fighting it. "Candela's day off." So those weren't Candela's aqua scrubs he saw then. "And you are dissembling."

"I'm fine." At the faint hint of a scowl, Peter tips his head, acknowledging he wouldn't have let Neal get away with that non-answer. "My career security has only increased since we took down the panthers, in spite of... the Dubai contingency." Even given his CI/partner setting out to fake his death and getting himself shivved in the process, and therefore caught, Peter did preside over a historic takedown. And immediately following that, he saved a hostage and killed the horrific weasel and international criminal holding a gun to her head. The brass tends to get stars in their eyes over that sort of thing. He might be up for a medal.

"So you're okay."

Peter gives up on using the newspaper as a prop and puts it aside. Neal's been worrying about this. He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. "I'm good, honestly." 

"Good." Neal closes his eyes.

Peter feels a brief, wearying kinship to Sisyphus, that ancient Greek guy cursed to keep lugging a boulder up a mountain again and again and watch it fall each time. All that work, and he just kept getting sent back to square one. _What would you have done if I hadn't been okay?_

_How much would it have ended up costing me? Or you?_

God, what a mess.

_Look, we've talked about this and we have an idea. Witsec, as soon as you're up to leaving. You can take June with you. It'll be like another vacation. Meanwhile the rest of us, we'll be okay. Me and my people will cut off the panthers' contacts so they can't hurt anyone again. And then you can come back. It won't be long; it definitely won't be a lifetime. We'll see each other again soon._

It's just an idea. It could solve everything. 

Neal would probably never go for it. Peter isn't sure he wants him to.

"Hey, come on," Peter says, squeezing Neal's shoulder. "Don't sleep here. They'll get mad and they'll blame me." He guides Neal into bed and Neal lets him, with only a few displeased hums as argument. For a minute Peter watches him, finding a position that doesn't hurt in less time than he has in recent days. Feeling kind of slow and not 100% in control of his actions, he brushes back the hair that flops into Neal's forehead. Neal captures his hand and presses it against his lips.

"Go home," he mumbles, without opening his eyes.

Tomorrow. They'll talk about it tomorrow.

Peter tosses the paper in the garbage--Neal hates newsprint on his fingers and wouldn't even want to touch it, much less read it--grabs his coat, and opens the door. 

_You better fucking be here._


End file.
